The New England Patriots may not have played their best four quarters of the season, but they put together their best fourth quarter of the season in Week 8. And that’s what mattered against the Los Angeles Chargers in the Patriots’ 27-24 win on Sunday afternoon.
“The second and third quarter were not good enough,” quarterback Mac Jones said after the game. “We finished strong. That’s just the moral of the story: finish strong. … I think we’ve been on the other end of it, with it being close and not finishing. We’ve played well early and not played as well as it went on. And today was a little bit of the reverse.”
That about sums it up.
The Patriots coaching staff made a series of puzzling decisions in the second quarter — with a bad play-call on fourth down, a strange abandonment of the run in the red zone and a rushed final drive at the end of the half — and Jones had a rough run of incompletions that spanned from the second quarter into the third. But the Patriots recovered with a pair of interceptions from safety Adrian Phillips, including a pick-six and a massive, 7-minute drive from the offense. That closed things out.
Here are the winners and losers from the game.
